US police employing border-patrol drones – and the videos are ‘top secret’

Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a branch of Homeland Security, logged about 700 covert drone operations on behalf of federal, state and local police agencies from 2010 to 2012, according to a civil-liberties group.

Unmanned aerial vehicles from the CBS fleet – the largest outside
of the US Pentagon - are being used by outside law enforcement
agencies much more often than previously believed, according to
the findings of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit initiated by
the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EEF).

Hundreds of missions were carried out on behalf of the Coast
Guard, the Drug Enforcement Administration and immigration
authorities. And in a bizarre choice of name, the drone system
used to track individuals and vehicles is called VADER (Vehicle
and Dismount Exploitation Radar), in an echo of the Stars Wars
character, sith lord Darth Vader.

More worrying, however, is that the reams of videotape being
collected by the surveillance drones are not accessible to the
public.

CBP officials refused to provide the names of law enforcement
departments for which the agency conducted drones, Jennifer
Lynch, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, told the Washington Post. At the same time, CBS
policy allows for the “indefinite retention” of video data and
other information that are related to investigations.

Although CBP, which employs over 45,000 federal agents and
officers, does not deny that it carries out drone missions for
other law-enforcement agencies, it refuses to provide information
regarding the exact nature of the missions.

The data obtained by EEF showed that the name of the government
agency borrowing the drones was heavily redacted, but CBP
officials provided their own separate tally of the various
agencies employing its drones.

Civil rights advocates, however, fear the implications on
individual privacy as the government pushes for greater drone use
in American skies.

Police eye in the sky

Presently, drone missions in the United States are highly
regulated due to safety concerns. Aside from the military, CBP is
the only agency permitted by the Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) to operate unmanned aerial vehicles regularly inside the
country.

As a result, other law enforcement agencies that lack their own
drone fleet are increasingly looking to the CBP to carry out
missions on their behalf, especially since the Defense Department
is prohibited from using its drones in the US for law enforcement
activities. This situation has led to a dramatic increase of
drone traffic in American skies.

In 2010, for example, CBP carried out 76 drone missions on behalf
of other agencies. The following year, that number quadrupled,
and it remained at nearly the same level in 2012.

Overall, Customs and Border Protection conducted 687 drone
missions for other agencies from 2010 to 2012, according to the
data acquired by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Friendly skies?

Outside of protecting America’s northern and southern borders, as
well as over the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, CBS lends its
expertise in disaster relief efforts, the war on drugs and
hunting for missing persons.

Due to the technology’s powerful capabilities for spying, civil
rights groups are concerned the drones will lead to the rise of a
surveillance state of sorts, with American privacy being invaded
at every corner.

Today, police agencies are showing a marked interest in the use
of aerial drone, which can fly at altitudes of 50,000 feet for
over 30 hours. Many of the more advanced models, like the
Predator B, include infrared cameras and specialized radar.

CBP has a fleet of 10 unarmed Predator B drones, which is nearly
identical to the US Air Force drone known as the Reaper.

The FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies have their own
drones, but they are not as advanced as those operated by Customs
and Border Protection.

Meanwhile, proponents of the use of drone technology by law
enforcement agencies argue, however, that there is no legal
distinction between the use of unmanned aerial vehicles and
piloted aircraft for carrying out surveillance missions.

The difference of opinion has triggered a heated political debate
in Congress over the appropriate use of drone technology; the
Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee is set to
hold a hearing on the issue Wednesday.